


Flower

by DillieBar



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Cute, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian Character, Love, ellie sings to dina bc she's adorable and she can't say no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23464600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DillieBar/pseuds/DillieBar
Summary: While out on patrol, Ellie and Dina stumble across a group of hunters and Dina gets shot. Ellie gets them back to Jackson, where she insists on nursing Dina back to health. Joel brings a guitar to cheer her up. Loosely based on the recent screencap from ND.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 117





	Flower

Ellie’s hand wrapped around the nearly-empty bottle of rubbing alcohol. It wasn’t much, and medical supplies were getting harder and harder to come by on patrol, but Dina was worth it. Even if Ellie had been able to clean her bullet wound with 100% alcohol and sacrifice a limb to a witchdoctor or some shit, she would still insist on checking and cleaning every ten minutes and sticking to Dina’s hip, despite the shorter girl’s protest. 

Ellie closed the medicine cabinet and took a moment to study her own wounds in the mirror. She hadn’t come out nearly as beaten up as Dina did, with barely much more than a scratch on the right side of her face. Part of her almost felt guilty for it. She’d always felt a responsibility to look after her. Maybe if she hadn’t let her and Dina get separated, everything would have been fine. Maybe if she looked a little more carefully when opening that basement door, she wouldn’t have gotten shot. 

But all of that was over now, and Ellie was going to do all she could to make it up to her.

She exited the bathroom and made her way down the hall, knocking lightly on the bedroom door of Dina’s home and letting herself in. Ellie had barely managed to lug them both back to Jackson the day before, and since then, Dina hadn’t left the bed. Her face fell a bit as she entered, the sight of Dina still laying under the covers, eyes open, staring into nothingness. The plate of food that sat on her bedside table sat untouched.

Ellie sat herself criss-cross on the left side of the bed facing Dina, though her eyes didn’t look up.

“Can I see?” she asked, placing a hand on the edge of the covers and moving them down. 

Dina turned over on her back in response, pulling up her peach-colored shirt up over her belly to reveal her bandaged abdomen. Ellie lifted the dressings to get a closer look, and as she expected, the stitches were doing their job and it looked to be healing as best as it could be. Still, she dabbed some of the alcohol on an old cotton towel and pressed it against the wound, cleaning it to the best of her ability. When she was done she pulled down Dina’s shirt, replaced the covers, and went to move off of the bed, but felt a soft hand grab around her tattooed arm.

Ellie looked back down at the girl, who had shifted her absent stare to look up at her in a pleading manner.

“Please stay.”

She nodded and didn’t hesitate to lay next to Dina, pulling the covers over her own body and rolling onto her side. Their gazes locked, and Ellie couldn’t help but notice the tinge of pain that rested in the pools of those deep brown eyes. She had never seen her best friend this hurt before, both physically and emotionally.

_ A brush with death will do that to you _ . 

In that single thought Ellie realized just how close she had come to losing Dina. She thought she had known when it was happening. She thought she had known just after. She thought she had known on the ride home. But in reality, she only knew just how much she would lose in this moment. She would miss the smiles, the sound of her voice, the snarky comments, and rare moments like the dance that only came once-in-a-lifetime. Instead all she’d have of her was the blood that stained her hands and traumatic memories of a day that never should’ve come, and if that’s how she felt, she couldn’t even imagine what was going through the other girl’s head.

“Ellie?”

She snapped out of her thoughts and looked back to the now-teary-eyed girl that lay only a few inches from her. 

“Yeah?”

Dina took Ellie’s hand and held it between her own. She brushed her thumbs over her rough skin, feeling it as if she’d never feel it again. Her eyes averted the green-eyed-girl’s gaze.

“Promise me you’ll never leave.”

Her voice cracked mid-sentence, which tore Ellie’s heart in two. A tear fell from Dina’s eye and she instinctively reached her free hand up to wipe it away, lightly cupping her face in an attempt to comfort the girl. Their eyes met again.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

A knock on the bedroom door interrupted their intimate moment.

_ “Hey kiddo, s’me.”  _ Joel’s voice called from the hallway.

Ellie pulled back from their embrace and stood to open the door. She took a moment to straighten her clothes and brush stray locks of hair out of her face.

“Hey.” she greeted, opening the door a couple inches. Joel stood there in a dark green button-up, guitar strung across his back. Ellie had caught up with him briefly at the gate when they rolled in, Dina hanging over her shoulder, but she hadn’t stuck around long enough to tell him the whole story. Word must’ve gotten around.

“Hey, uh, heard what happened,” he cleared his throat and gestured to the girl in bed, “she alright?”

Ellie sighed, unsure of the real answer.

“The wound is healing fine,” she replied, then pointing at the guitar strung across Joel’s back, “you brought your guitar?”

He nodded, swinging the strap over his head, “Thought it might cheer ‘er up a bit.”

Ellie nodded in response, and opened the door further to let him in. Dina loved guitar with a passion. Not playing it, but she always managed to coax Ellie into playing for her any time they were together, or at least whenever a guitar was available. She wasn’t even that good, but the way Dina rested her head on the taller girl’s shoulder as she plucked away at the worn strings always convinced her otherwise. 

Joel pulled up an old, dusty chair from the corner of the room up to the side of the bed. Dina sat up, and Ellie lay beside her, placing a loving arm around her shoulder as Joel placed his fingers delicately on the fretted neck of the guitar.

“Whaddya wanna hear, Dee?”

She thought about it for a minute, brushing her soft fingers against Ellie’s calloused hand that rested on her shoulder.

“The one named after that flower?”

Joel smiled, “I think El sure knows that one a lil’ better than I do,” he placed his fingers, “but that’ll do.”

The song was called “Hey There Delilah”, and Ellie and Dina had found it on vinyl in an old bookstore about a year ago. From the moment they sat criss-crossed in her bedroom, listening to the black disc as it spun round and round, Dina fell in love with it, and Ellie had spent weeks memorizing chords and calloussing her fingers just so she could replicate the tune. Ever since, Dina called it “the flower song”, and Ellie wouldn’t normally have cared much for it if it didn’t mean so much to her best friend. Now it was her favorite, too.

Joel began plucking away to the intro, which was pretty simple compared to previous songs they’d found. It was loving, but somber. Sweet, but bitter. It was something that seemed to define their relationship as a whole.

Just as he opened his mouth to sing the first lyrics, he stopped playing, and looked up.

“Ellie, wanna be my lead?”

Ellie smiled in disbelief, “Uh, no I think I’m good,” she laughed. Joel went to keep on playing.

“Aw, El,” Dina looked up at her, “C’mon, please? I’ve never heard you sing.”

Ellie looked at Joel, expecting his support. Instead, he raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

  
“The lady’s never heard ya sing, El.”

She hesitated for a moment, checking to make sure that they were being serious and that they were actually going to make her do this. But alas, the eyes in the room remained locked on her, awaiting her answer, and those dark browns refused to let up.

“...Alright, play the fuckin’ song.” she said playfully.

Dina smiled and curled into Ellie’s chest as Joel started the song up again. Normally, it would take her a minute to start. The soap bottles in her shower were enough of an audience for her. But if it would make Dina happy, especially right now, she couldn’t resist.

The words flowing out of her mouth almost seemed to be her own. She had spent so long keeping her feelings a secret that the past few days had felt like a dream, and as of the day before, she wished it was. This song was always a way for her to express what she couldn’t tell the girl leaning against her, but in reality, she knew how Ellie felt all along, and now it was just a reminder.

She thought of the promise she had made not fifteen minutes before. It was right then when she began to wonder whether or not she could keep it. The anger towards those men still boiled in her veins, and at this point, she would do anything in her power to make sure they would never come anywhere near Dina or Jackson ever again. There was only one way to do that, though.

She’d have to kill them.

Before Ellie knew it, the music had stopped, and Joel had swung his guitar over his back once again.

“Think she’s asleep,” He nodded towards Dina, voice slightly above a whisper.

She looked down at the dark-haired girl whose head rested against her chest. Sure enough, her eyes were closed and only a peaceful exhale escaped from her lips.

“I reckon you’re stayin’ here tonight?”

She nodded, pulling the blanket back over Dina and tucking it into her sides. Joel nodded at the response, flicking the lightswitch off as he let himself out.

Ellie studied the calm features of Dina below her and brushed a stray hair out of her face and behind her ear.

_ How could anyone hurt something so beautiful? _

She pondered the question over and over again in her mind. Dina wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less anything else, unless it were already dead like those clicking motherfuckers on the other side of the gate. Her heart was too pure for someone who grew up in this kind of screwed up world. She didn’t deserve it. No one who loved like her did.

Though her mind was racing, she settled into the bed and held Dina as tight as she could without hurting her, making sure that even if death himself came to take her away, he’d have to pry her from her cold, dead arms. 

Before she fell asleep, she made one final decision. 

  
_ I’m gonna find, and I’m gonna kill, every last one of them _ .

**Author's Note:**

> Hey ya’ll! This fanfiction was loosely based off of the new screenshots from TLOU2 and Hey There Delilah because it gave me those vibes. I’ve written a bit before, mostly for The Walking Dead, but I’ve never written anything here on AO3 or about TLOU/Ellie and Dina. I hope you liked it! Make sure to check out my blog on tumblr, @dilliebar, where I post a lot of analysis/TLOU memes. Have a great night, let’s cry ourselves to sleep about the delay together!


End file.
